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NPR's Jon Greenberg reports that welfare reform is one of the big uncompleted pieces of business from last year. As lawmakers continue to wrestle with an overhaul at the federal level, the states have been making their own changes. 37 states have been granted waivers to set their own rules on who is eligible for assistance. Today, President Clinton gave the states more leeway. In his weekly radio address, he announced any state that wants to, will now be allowed to pay teenage mothers a cash bonus if they stay in school.

The presumptive GOP presidential nominee, Sen. Bob Dole, today challenged President Clinton to come out strongly in favor of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution if he is serious about getting rid of the federal deficit. Dole plans on bringing the amendment up on the Senate floor one last time before he retires next week. President Clinton responded that Republicans were hiding behind the amendment to avoid negotiating on specific spending cuts. NPR's Elizabeth Arnold reports.

NPR's Neal Conan reports that today is the 35th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs fiasco. On April 17, 1961, a brigade of Cuban volunteers trained by the Central Intelligence Agency landed at a remote spot on the southern coast of Cuba in an attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro. The bungled invasion was a military and political disaster for the United States and President John F. Kennedy. And, while the Cold War is now over, the Bay of Pigs remains a rallying cry for the Castro regime, which still uses the threat of American intervention to justify political repression.

NPR's John Nielsen reports that the United States and Israel have agreed to install a new set of anti-missile defenses in Israel, as part of an effort to keep enemy rockets from ever hitting Israeli soil. Recent attempts to bomb the hiding places of Hezbollah guerillas firing rockets at Israel have had one disastrous side effect--heavy civilian casualties. That seems to be one of the reasons why Israel and the United States will rush to finish testing and installing an anti-missile system whose key components exist only as prototypes.

President Clinton announced Sunday that the United States would be expanding cooperation with Israeli on missile defense. He said that the U-S would promise to provide more intelligence warnings of enemy launches and to step up development of a new laser weapon to shoot down Katyusha rockets. Robert Siegel talks with John Donnelly, who is a reporter for Defense Weekly and has been covering the laser program. Donnelly explains that the program is still being tested but Israel hopes that it will aid in the destruction of the artillery rockerts used by Hezbollah against targets in Northern Israel.

NPR's Claudio Sanchez reports that millions of kids in the US still receive "bilingual education" (instruction in their native languages and in English) despite widespread criticism that the practice keeps non-native English speakers at a disadvantage. Supporters of the program say kids with no English skills need help keeping up in their studies until they become proficient in English, and they want government funding for the program to continue. There's very little hard evidence on the effectiveness of bilingual ed, so the debate over the program tends to rest on ideological differences over the status of English vis a vis other languages spoken in this country.

NPR's Vicky Que reports that a new study is raising questions about whether certain hormone-based contraceptives may increase the risks of becoming infected with the AIDS virus. In the study, researchers found that monkeys that received the hormone progesterone were more likely to be infected with SIV, the monkey equivament of HIV, than monkeys that did not receive the hormone. The findings suggest that contraceptives like Norplant may not only NOT protect against HIV, but may actually enhance a woman's chances of becoming infected. Researchers cautioned, however, that more research is needed to determine whether the findings hold true for humans.

NPR's Steve Inskeep (INZ-keep) reports on the ruins of a Scottish castle that stand on a tiny island in the middle of the Hudson River in upstate New York ... ruins which appear on the misty water like a chunk of debris from some medieval flood. The castle was built as a home and warehouse by Francis Bannerman, a turn-of-the-century weapons dealer. Today, his castle is seen by thousands of commuters in passing trains...and an effort is underway to stabilize the ruins before they collapse into the harbor.

NPR's Brooke Gladstone reports on MSNBC -- the new 24-hour cable news channel that offers CNN its first-ever direct competition. Despite 16-years of bad press, low ratings and slow profits, CNN is thriving in its niche market -- upscale, middle-aged, news junkies. MSNBC hopes to lure chunks of that audience away with round-the-clock timeliness and 24-hour linkage to an expansive internet website. The other networks will be watching closely to see how much slicing the 24-hour news market can bear.

NPR's Claudio Sanchez reports on the debate over how to train and certify the next generation of teachers. An estimated 2 million new teachers will enter the nation's schools in the next decade, and many educators favor national standards and other measures as a way of ensuring that the next generation of teachers is qualified. But others say a state and local approach is more appropriate, and some feel making we need to loosen up the rules for teacher certification as a way of encouraging people to get on the job training in the profession.